Badab Primaris, officially listed within Imperial astrocartographic databases as Badab II, is a Dead World that was located in the Badab Sector of the Segmentum Ultima and that was once a thriving Hive World before the terrible conflict known as the Badab War scoured it of all life. In 718.M41, a failed coup attempt against Badab's ruling Dominar led to an abortive civil war, and the Astral ClawsSpace MarineChapter stepped in and brutally crushed the conflict. Chapter MasterLufgt Huron personally took matters into his own hands and swiftly reimposed order. Assuming the mantle of Planetary Governor, Huron styled himself the "Tyrant of Badab," and laid claim to the inhabited worlds in proximity to the Badab System as his Chapter's feudal demesne. Huron then sent a request to the Adeptus Administratum that the Maelstrom Zone be allowed to stop providing its tithe of resources to the Imperium so that he could refocus those resources on the Maelstrom Warders' efforts to cleanse the Maelstrom of Renegades and Heretics. This request was denied and met instead with increased quota demands. Huron then unilaterally withheld Badab Primaris' planetary tithe to the Imperium and blocked the passage of Imperial trade through his realms. This was intended to protest the Imperium's failure to provide him and his Astartes allies with sufficient resources to police the Maelstrom. Refusing to carry out the Astral Claws' primary role as the defenders of the Imperial worlds within the Maelstrom Zone, the Tyrant diverted the industrial resources and manpower of the Badab Sector that he was no longer providing to the Imperium to directly supplement the Badab Sector's defences as well as to augment the Maelstrom Zone's fleet detachment and to better fortify the key worlds of the sector under his control. The Tyrant ordered the demolition of the ancient citadel of the ruling Dominars of Badab Primaris and instead erected the legendary "Palace of Thorns" to his own specifications and design.

The political conflict between the Administratum's right to claim the Imperial tithe and the ancient right of Adeptus Astartes Chapter Masters to defend the Imperium by any means necessary came to be known as the Badab Schism and would last for more than a century and a half. Ultimately, the schism would culminate in the internecine conflict known as the Badab War, a civil war fought between the Chapters of the Maelstrom Warders who sought to secede from the Imperium and those Loyalist Chapters that moved to maintain Imperial unity. After over a dozen years of brutal warfare in the Maelstrom Zone, the Loyalists' final assault on Badab Primaris commenced in early 913.M41 and resulted in the defeat of the Astral Claws. Lufgt Huron fell mortally wounded during the final assault on the Palace of Thorns when he and his elite bodyguard were attacked by a contingent of Star PhantomsAstartes, although his body was borne away by his closest followers and he would return to plague the Imperium once more as the piratical Chaos LordHuron Blackheart. Taking matters into their own hands during the final assault, the savage Carcharodons Chapter sabotaged the ancient atomic and geo-thermal reactors which powered the hive cities of Badab Primaris and fed its planetary defence batteries with energy. The cascading destruction of the subterranean reactor cores deep beneath Badab's hives took its toll. Tectonic shocks and volcanic eruptions destroyed the surface of the planet, and the majority of the planet's population was exterminated by the blasts and the resulting radioactive fallout within only a few standard days.

Contents

History

Imperial colonial settlements were first established on the temperate world of Badab Primaris in the late 38th Millennium and the world soon became a thriving hub of industrialisation and trade within the region, filling the Imperium's coffers. In 718.M1, a failed coup on the Hive World against the ruling Dominar led to an abortive civil war. The Astral Claws stepped in and brutally crushed the conflict. In the aftermath, the elements behind the coup were brought forth to Lufgt Huron for judgement. Mindful of the lesson concerning the destruction of the nearby world of Cygnax after a similar planetary rebellion had spun out of control, the Chapter Master personally reimposed order once more. This time the Astral Claws executed much of the planet's ruling class as well as those they perceived as morally recidivist. Taking upon himself the mantle of Planetary Governor, Lufgt Huron styled himself the "Tyrant of Badab" and claimed the inhabited worlds of the Badab System as his Chapter's new Imperial fief. In his subsequent pronouncement declaring his assumption of rule, he echoed the precedent set by the creation of the sovereign Realm of Ultramar under the control of the Ultramarines and the Maelstrom Warders' own charter. The nearby star systems was purged wholesale of their ruling elites and in the decades after Huron assumed control of Badab Primaris, a number of Astral Claws "watch bastions" were established on inhabited planets throughout the sector. The Tyrant's chosen servants and political allies were placed in positions of power, and the entire Badab Sector was transformed into a pocket empire commanded by the Astral Claws. By 790.M41 the defence of the Badab Sector was stronger than at any point in its history and this new security allowed the Maelstrom Zone's worlds to reach levels of industrial production never before achieved.

Huron then sent a request to the Adeptus Administratum that the Maelstrom Zone be allowed to stop providing its tithe of resources to the Imperium so that he could refocus those resources on the Maelstrom Warders' efforts to cleanse the Maelstrom of Renegades and Heretics. This request was denied and met instead with increased quota demands. Huron then unilaterally withheld Badab Primaris' planetary tithe to the Imperium and blocked the passage of Imperial trade through his realms. This was intended to protest the Imperium's failure to provide him and his Astartes allies with sufficient resources to police the Maelstrom. Refusing to carry out the Astral Claws' primary role as the defenders of the Imperial worlds within the Maelstrom Zone, the Tyrant diverted the industrial resources and manpower of the Badab Sector that he was no longer providing to the Imperium to directly supplement the Badab Sector's defences as well as to augment the Maelstrom Zone's fleet detachment and to better fortify the key worlds of the sector under his control. These space-based defences encircling the outer and inner spheres of the Badab Sector came to be known as the "Ring of Steel." The Tyrant ordered the demolition of the ancient citadel of the ruling Dominars of Badab Primaris and instead erected the legendary "Palace of Thorns" to his own specifications and design. The political conflict between the Administratum's right to claim the Imperial tithe and the ancient right of Adeptus Astartes Chapter Masters to defend the Imperium by any means necessary came to be known as the Badab Schism and would last for more than a century and a half.

In 911.M41, Huron publicly proclaimed throughout the Badab Sector that the Astral Claws and their subjects had seceded from the Imperium of Man and that he and his followers swore to fight to their last breath to maintain their freedom. Huron ordered all signs and symbols of Imperial authority, culture and religion destroyed on every world of his demesne in an orgy of iconoclasm. Mass executions on Badab Primaris of Ecclesiarchy clerics and Administratum functionaries (most of whom had remained largely ignorant of the true cause and nature of the schism) lasted for many weeks without pause. In the Tyrant's spite and fury, great Imperial basilica were toppled, while Imperial clergy and Adepts were slaughtered on every world where his forces held the reins of power. The Astral Claws' wrath grew more arbitrary and brutal as their increasing paranoia and the murderous rages to which Lugft Huron was becoming prone took a toll on those unfortunate innocents caught within the Tyrant's realm. On Badab Primans, any mortal who dared to look directly into the face of one of the Astral Claws Astartes could be punished by blinding and similar draconian laws soon proliferated. After an assassin tried to take the life of Huron within his own command chamber and was slain by the Tyrant himself, non-Astartes were banned entirely from the precincts of the Palace of Thorns upon pain of death, and thousands of civilians were killed in groundless reprisals by the Astral Claws' Retaliator Squads.

The Fall of Badab Primaris

By early 913.M41 the Badab Sector was firmly under Loyalist control and Badab Primaris soon found itself under siege. The final battle of the Badab War took place at the Palace of Thorns, Huron's seat of power, where the Loyalist Star Phantoms spearheaded the assault. Almost impregnable to ground assault, the Star Phantoms instead attacked the Palace of Thorns via Drop Pods and Thunderhawk gunships, under the cover of a colossal orbital bombardment. A bitter struggle soon erupted between the remaining Astral Claws and the Star Phantoms as they vied for control of the palace while the battle fleet in orbit above Badab Primaris continued to trade punishing volleys of fire with the defensive guns of Huron's stronghold. Assigned by Lord High Commander Carab Cullnthetask of attacking the planet's infrastructure and preventing an organised defence from taking root, the Carcharodons took matters into their own hands to bring about the end of the Tyrant's reign and devised their own plan for doing so. They despatched strike teams deep into the sub-surface caverns deep beneath Badab Primaris' hive cities. There the savage Astartes sabotaged the extensive subterranean network of ancient atomic and geo-thermal reactors which powered the hives and fed Badab Primaris' hungry planetary defence batteries with energy. Across Badab Primaris the power failed or suddenly spiked, which added to the chaos of the final assault, while the hives began to quake and the once soaring towers of Badab toppled like felled trees. As the reactors began to detonate, they ripped apart Badab's continental landmasses, triggering massive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, hurling millions of tonnes of radioactive fallout and debris into the
atmosphere.

Meanwhile, the Star Phantoms gradually began to press forwards to the Secessionists' inner defence line. While fighting their way through the sewer network beneath the Palace of Throns the Star Phantoms finally reached the defence batteries that powered Badab Primaris's formidable defences. The Star Phantoms destroyed the power generators that supplied the defence grid, finally silencing the big guns so that a full-scale Loyalist assault could commence. As the battle swung against the Secessionists for the final time, Captain Zhrukal Androcles of the Star Phantoms' 9th Devastator Reserve Company ambushed Lufgt Huron and his elite bodyguard as the Traitors struggled to fight their way to their landing craft to effect their escape. The swift and bloody battle that followed wiped out the entire Star Phantoms detachment, but not before the dying Androcles managed to unleash a Melta-blast at point blank range into the Tyrant of Badab, dealing him a mortal blow, although his body was borne away by his closest followers and he would return to plague the Imperium once more as the piratical Chaos Lord Huron Blackheart, the master of the warband of vicious Chaos Space Marines called the Red Corsairs.

Beneath the hives of Badab Primaris, the cascading destruction of the subterranean reactor cores took their toll. Tectonic shocks and volcanic eruptions increased at an exponential rate and entire hive city sectors collapsed into gaping maws that opened in the ground beneath them to be replaced by seas of churning lava. The Loyalist campaign of purgation and conquest on Badab quickly devolved into an anarchic retreat and many Astartes were caught in the path of destruction. In the anarchy and ruin that followed the fall of the hive cities, the air was filled with toxic ash and fallout, and the majority of the planet's population are estimated to have been exterminated within only a few standard days. Confusion reigned in the wreckage-strewn Badab System as both Loyalists and Secessionist starships were fired upon. It was later determined that at least one small Warp-capable privateer vessel managed to escape the Badab System into the Warp. Later intelligence reports suggest that less than two hundred Astral Claws survivors were on board, led by their Master of the ForgeArmenneus Valthex and carrying with them their master's broken yet still living body. The Badab War was over, but the Emperor's judgement upon treacherous Badab had been delivered. Badab Primaris was nothing more than a ruined, radioactive cinder and effectively became a Dead World, haunted only by the dead and the memory of its lost Tyrant.

Departmento Cartographicae Planetary Database

The estimated population of Badab Primaris in 913.M41 was 5.17 billion human Imperial citizens; the planet is currently uninhabitable by unprotected organic life.

Tithe Grade: None (Formerly Exactis Extremis)

Climate/Geography/Biosphere: Arid/Desolate; Much of the surface of Badab Primaris is currently covered in millions of tonnes of radioactive fallout and debris, processed slag debris and ruined hive cities and industrial plants; the toxicity is now extreme, and the lethal average exposure time for a baseline human physiology is 1-3 weeks.

Governmental Type: None (Formerly an Imperial Commander with the title of Dominar as hereditary ruler drawn from the leading industrial clan families until the failed coup in 781.M41, when the Astral Claws brutally suppressed the uprisings, executing much of the planet's ruling class as well as purging those they perceived as morally recidivist. Lufgt Huron then took on the dual role of Chapter Master and Planetary Governor.)

Military: None (Formerly the Astral Claws Chapter and its human Auxilia known as the Tyrant's Legion who were equivalent to a second-tier Imperial Guard army; additional Household Troops of various industrial ruling clans equivalent in quality to irregular militia. Before the final assault of the Loyalists upon the world in 912.M41, Badab Primaris was protected by the High Guard orbital station, a modified Inviolate-class Star Fortress that once served as the Astral Claws' Chapter base before they assumed rule over Badab Primaris after 781.M41. The Star Fortress was destroyed by the Loyalists' attack.)